1.20.2010

How things have changed! Well, that's what President Obama promised us, wasn't it?

If someone had told you a year ago that Teddy Kennedy would die within the year, and that a Republican would be elected to fill his seat, what would you have said? After you got up off the floor where you'd been rolling around laughing, of course. The Republicans were supposed to be dead, a tainted brand, doomed to wander in the political wilderness for a generation. And in one short year, Barack Obama, Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi and their cronies have completely turned that around. One of the bluest states in the country, one that did not have a single Republican in its entire congressional delegation, just elected Scott Brown, a Republican, to fill a Senate seat that had been held by a Kennedy or one of their family retainers since 1953. To say that this is shocking is an understatement.

I turned on MSDNC... Oops, MSNBC, last night to see how people like Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow were holding up. You never saw such long faces! I have to admit feeling a certain amount of schadenfreude.

1.15.2010

If you've seen those gut-wrenching images coming from earthquake-ravaged Port-au-Prince, Haiti, then you probably want to do something to help those poor people, if you haven't already. Last night, I read a blog post from Tony Woodlief's Sand in the Gears blog (via Instapundit) who told the story of the BRESMA orphanage in Port-au-Prince. There are about 150 orphans there, desperately in need of supplies. The orphanage is affiliated with Kentucky Adoption Services. There's a link on the blog post above if you feel moved to make a contribution by PayPal or credit card. You can't save all of Haiti, but you can help save those children. And of course, there are numerous other worthy charities trying to help the suffering people of Haiti. Do what you can.

Here is another blog which has information about the orphanage and the two young women who were running it and are trying to get the children to safety in the U.S.

1.06.2010

If it's freezing here in southwest Florida, which it is, then you, dear reader, are probably even colder. It was 29 degrees in my driveway this morning when I got home from work. My car windows were covered in frost this morning, and since I don't own an ice scraper, I had to turn the heater all the way up and blow it full blast on the windshield to melt the ice. It only took a few minutes.

To put this into focus, we are looking at the possibility of tying or breaking some long-standing records. We set a record low in Fort Myers this morning at 35 degrees, and it's colder east of I-75 where I live.

Even more interesting, I saw on the local news yesterday that record for the longest number of days where the high temperature doesn't reach 70 degrees as 12 days. I think it happened twice, once in the 1910s and once in the 1930s. They showed a graphic of the longest stretches of nine days or longer, and there were only about eight or nine of them since the beginning of the 20th Century, with the most recent occurrences being three times in the 1970s.

Well, the high last Friday was 77 degrees. Since then, over the past four days, the highs haven't gotten out of the 60s, and the forecast for the next week, through next Tuesday, is for the temperatures to stay below 70. That would be 11 days, which is highly unusual. We normally get one or two blasts of cold air every winter that drop the temperatures down around freezing, but usually, it warms up in a couple of days or so. This time, it's been one cold front after another and it isn't warming up.

I know that most of you would take high temperatures in the 50s and 60s and lows around freezing with gratitude, but you probably don't live in a place with palm trees and other subtropical vegetation. We aren't used to this kind of extended cold, and to get an idea of how the weather feels to us, subtract 40 degrees or so.

1.04.2010

It's cold. Yesterday's high of 52 degrees was 23 degrees below the normal average high for the date. It's in the 30s this morning, and will be down around freezing tomorrow morning. It's supposed to be colder than normal for at least the next week. Global warming, my foot. For all you people Up North who were expecting to have palm trees and hibiscus bushes in the near future, guess again. I'm not saying that we're facing the onset of an ice age, but then again, I can't say we aren't.